Friday, December 31, 2010

Here we are.One year is almost finished and the next one ready to begin.I cannot do previsions of how it will be, I like to read them, hoping they are good, but since I do not believe in them I soon forget what I read.Everybody can predict everything, the difficult part is predicting the right things.May be there are people who can predict events, because they make them happen.I am not one of them and I think I like to ignore the future, just in case...Well I certainly know that I won´t win at the lottery (because I do not play) that I won´t get married ( I already am), that I won´t see Australia or New Zealand.I certainly know what I won´t do or what I will do.I do not know what will happen or what the others will do.I just read a funny thought.Somebody was complaining that in the very near future the dollar will be worth just as toilet paper.The other answered: at least will be worth for something.Have you ever tried to wipe your bottom with gold coins?

This perfectly explains my predictions for next year.Whatever happens may be is not as bad as we think.Having less sometimes is the right road to BE more.Happy new year to ALL!

Every man, like every dog, has his own individual limit of endurance. Most men reach their limit after about thirty days of more or less continuous stress under the conditions of modern combat. The more than averagely susceptible succumb in only fifteen days. The more than averagely tough can resist for forty-five or even fifty days. Strong or weak, in the long run all of them break down. All, that is to say, of those who are initially sane. For, ironically enough, the only people who can hold up indefinitely under the stress of modern war are psychotics. Individual insanity is immune to the consequences of collective insanity.

Whatever may have happened in earlier years, it seems fairly certain that torture is not extensively used by the Communist police today. They draw their inspiration, not from the Inquisitor or the SS man, but from the physiologist and his methodically conditioned laboratory animals. For the dictator and his policemen, Pavlov's findings have important practical implications. If the central nervous system of dogs can be broken down, so can the central nervous system of political prisoners. It is simply a matter of applying the right amount of stress for the right length of time. At the end of the treatment, the prisoner will be in a state of neurosis or hysteria, and will be ready to confess whatever his captors want him to confess.

But confession is not enough. A hopeless neurotic is no use to anyone.What the intelligent and practical dictator needs is not a patient to be institutionalized, or a victim to be shot, but a convert who will work for the Cause. Turning once again to Pavlov, he learns that, on their way to the point of final breakdown, dogs become more than normally suggestible. New behavior patterns can easily be installed while the dog is at or near the limit of its cerebral endurance, and these new behavior patterns seem to be ineradicable. The animal in which they have been implanted cannot be deconditioned; that which it has learned under stress will remain an integral part of its make-up

Hitler was quite right in maintaining that mass meetings at night were more effective than mass meetings in the daytime.Pavlov would have agreed with him; fatigue increases suggestibility.Illness is even more effective than fatigue as an intensifier of suggestibility. In the past, sickrooms were the scene of countless religious conversions.

Strong negative emotions tend to heighten suggestibility and so facilitate a change.John Wesley's enormous success as a preacher was based upon an intuitive understanding of the central nervous system. He would open his sermon with a long and detailed description of the torments to which, unless they underwent conversion, his hearers would undoubtedly be condemned for all eternity.

The effectiveness of political and religious propaganda depends upon the methods employed, not upon the doctrines taught. These doctrines may be true or false, wholesome or pernicious -- it makes little or no difference. If the indoctrination is given in the right way at the proper stage of nervous exhaustion, it will work. Under favorable conditions, practically everybody can be converted to practically anything.

From the moment he is taken into custody, the victim is subjected systematically to many kinds of physical and psychological stress. He is badly fed, he is made extremely uncomfortable, he is not allowed to sleep for more than a few hours each night. And all the time he is kept in a state of suspense, uncertainty and acute apprehension.The young field workers, whose business it was, during the first years of the new regime, to act as Communist missionaries and organizers in China's innumerable towns and villages were made to take a course of indoctrination far more intense than that to which any prisoner of war was ever subjected.This is what the Jesuits did for the Roman Church of the Counter Reformation.

Brainwashing, as it is now practiced, is a hybrid technique, depending for its effectiveness partly on the systematic use of violence, partly on skilful psychological manipulation.

Conditioned from earliest infancy (and perhaps also biologically predestined), the average middle- or lower-caste individual will never require conversion or even a refresher course in the true faith. The members of the highest caste will have to be able to think new thoughts in response to new situations; consequently their training will be much less rigid than the training imposed upon those whose business is not to reason why, but merely to do and die with the minimum of fuss.

The enzymes which regulate the workings of the brain are being studied. Within the body, chemical substances such as adrenochrome and serotonin have been isolated and their far-reaching effects on our mental and physical functions are now being investigated. Meanwhile new drugs are being synthesized -- drugs that reinforce or correct or interfere with the actions of the various chemicals, by means of which the nervous system performs its daily and hourly miracles as the controller of the body, the instrument and mediator of consciousness.

A dictator could, if he so desired, make use of these drugs for political purposes. He could ensure himself against political unrest by changing the chemistry of his subjects' brains and so making them content with their servile condition. He could use tranquillizers to calm the excited, stimulants to arouse enthusiasm in the indifferent, halluciants to distract the attention of the wretched from their miseries. But how, it may be asked, will the dictator get his subjects to take the pills that will make them think, feel and behave in the ways he finds desirable? In all probability it will be enough merely to make the pills available. Today alcohol and tobacco are available, and people spend considerably more on these very unsatisfactory euphorics, pseudo-stimulants and sedatives than they are ready to spend on the education of their children.If tranquillizers could be bought as easily and cheaply as aspirin, they would be consumed, not by the billions, as they are at present, but by the scores and hundreds of billions. And a good, cheap stimulant would be almost as popular.Too much tension is a disease; but so is too little. There are certain occasions when we ought to be tense, when an excess of tranquillity (and especially of tranquillity imposed from the outside, by a chemical) is entirely inappropriate.

People actually see and hear a great deal more than they consciously know they see and hear, and that what they see and hear without knowing it is recorded by the subconscious mind and may affect their conscious thoughts, feelings and behavior. Pure science does not remain pure indefinitely. Sooner or later it is apt to turn into applied science and finally into technology. Theory modulates into industrial practice, knowledge becomes power, formulas and laboratory experiments undergo a metamorphosis, and emerge as the H-bomb.

The new technique of "subliminal projection," as it was called, was intimately associated with mass entertainment, and in the life of civilized human beings mass entertainment now plays a part comparable to that played in the Middle Ages by religion. Our epoch has been given many nicknames -- the Age of Anxiety, the Atomic Age, the Space Age. It might, with equally good reason, be called the Age of Television Addiction, the Age of Soap Opera, the Age of the Disk Jockey.

The new technique was aimed directly at the world's mass entertainees, and its purpose was to manipulate their minds without their being aware of what was being done to them. By means of specially designed tachistoscopes words or images were to be flashed for a millisecond or less upon the screens of television sets and motion picture theaters during (not before or after) the program. "Drink Coca-Cola" or "Light up a Camel" would be superimposed upon the lovers' embrace, the tears of the broken-hearted mother, and the optic nerves of the viewers would record these secret messages, their subconscious minds would respond to them and in due course they would consciously feel a craving for soda pop and tobacco. And meanwhile other secret messages would be whispered too softly, or squeaked too shrilly, for conscious hearing. Consciously the listener might be paying attention to some phrase as "Darling, I love you"; but subliminally, beneath the threshold of awareness, his incredibly sensitive ears and his subconscious mind would be taking in the latest good news about deodorants and laxatives.

Repeated at regular intervals during the showing of a picture in a movie theater, the command to buy more popcorn was said to have resulted in a 50 per cent increase in popcorn sales during the intermission.

In Britain, where the process of manipulating minds below the level of consciousness is known as "strobonic injection," investigators have stressed the practical importance of creating the right psychological conditions for subconscious persuasion. A suggestion above the threshold of awareness is more likely to take effect when the recipient is in a light hypnotic trance, under the influence of certain drugs, or has been debilitated by illness, starvation, or any kind of physical or emotional stress.

Above the threshold of awareness, one of the most effective methods of non-rational persuasion is what may be called persuasion-by-association.In a political campaign patriotism may be associated with any cause from apartheid to integration, and with any kind of person, from a Mahatma Gandhi to a Senator.

In the light of what has been said about persuasion-by-association and the enhancement of emotions by subliminal suggestion, let us try to imagine what a political meeting can be like. The candidate (if there is still a question of candidates), or the appointed representative of the ruling oligarchy, will make his speech for all to hear. Meanwhile the tachistoscopes, the whispering and squeaking machines, the projectors of images so dim that only the subconscious mind can respond to them, will be reinforcing what he says by systematically associating the man and his cause with positively charged words and hallowed images, and by strobonically injecting negatively charged words and odious symbols whenever he mentions the enemies of the State or the Party.

All the available evidence points to the conclusion that in the life of individuals and societies heredity is no less significant than culture. Every individual is biologically unique and unlike all other individuals. Freedom is therefore a great good, tolerance a great virtue and regimentation a great misfortune. For practical or theoretical reasons, dictators, organization men and certain scientists are anxious to reduce the maddening diversity of men's natures to some kind of manageable uniformity.

Everything that is done within a society is done by individuals. These individuals are, of course, profoundly influenced by the local culture, the taboos and moralities, the information and misinformation handed down from the past and preserved in a body of spoken traditions or written literature; but whatever each individual takes from society (or, to be more accurate, whatever he takes from other individuals associated in groups, or from the symbolic records compiled by other individuals, living or dead) will be used by him in his own unique way -- with his special senses, his biochemical make-up, his physique and temperament, and nobody else's. No amount of scientific explanation, however comprehensive, can explain away these self-evident facts.

The effects of false and pernicious propaganda cannot be neutralized except by a thorough training in the art of analyzing its techniques and seeing through its sophistries.

In their anti-rational propaganda the enemies of freedom systematically pervert the resources of language in order to wheedle or stampede their victims into thinking, feeling and acting as they, the mind-manipulators, want them to think, feel and act. An education for freedom (and for the love and intelligence which are at once the conditions and the results of freedom) must be, among other things, an education in the proper uses of language.

What Can Be Done?

Education. Education to crytical thinking.We can be educated for freedom -- much better educated for it than we are at present. But freedom, is threatened from many directions, and these threats are of many different kinds -- demographic, social, political, psychological.

The victim of mind-manipulation does not know that he is a victim. To him, the walls of his prison are invisible, and he believes himself to be free. That he is not free is apparent only to other people. His servitude is strictly objective.

We should fight for a statute for the protection of minds against the unscrupulous purveyors of poisonous propaganda, modeled on the statutes for the protection of bodies against the unscrupulous purveyors of adulterated food and dangerous drugs.There should be legislation prohibiting the use of subliminal projection in public places or on television screens. There could and, I think, there should be legislation to prevent political candidates not merely from spending more than a certain amount of money on their election campaigns, but also to prevent them from resorting to the kind of anti-rational propaganda that makes nonsense of the whole democratic process.

Under the relentless thrust of accelerating overpopulation and increasing over-organization, and by means of ever more effective methods of mind-manipulation, the democracies will change their nature; the quaint old forms -- elections, parliaments, Supreme Courts and all the rest -- will remain. The underlying substance will be a new kind of non-violent totalitarianism.

How can we control the vast impersonal forces that now menace our hard-won freedoms?

It is now a historical fact that the means of production are fast becoming the monopolistic property of Big Business and Big Government. Therefore, if you believe in democracy, make arrangements to distribute property as widely as possible. The right to vote in principle is a great privilege. In practice, as recent history has repeatedly shown, the right to vote, by itself, is no guarantee of liberty. Therefore, if you wish to avoid dictatorship by referendum, break up modern society's merely functional collectives into self-governing, voluntarily cooperating groups, capable of functioning outside the bureaucratic systems of Big Business and Big Government.

Over-population and over-organization have produced the modern metropolis, in which a fully human life of multiple personal relationships has become almost impossible. Therefore, if you wish to avoid the spiritual impoverishment of individuals and whole societies, leave the metropolis and revive the small country community, or alternately humanize the metropolis by creating within its network of mechanical organization the urban equivalents of small country communities, in which individuals can meet and cooperate as complete persons, not as the mere embodiments of specialized functions.

Do we really wish to act upon our knowledge? Does a majority of the population think it worth while to take a good deal of trouble, in order to halt and, if possible, reverse the current drift toward totalitarian control of everything?

Recent public opinion polls have revealed that an actual majority of young people in their teens, the voters of tomorrow, have no faith in democratic institutions, see no objection to the censorship of unpopular ideas, do not believe that government of the people by the people is possible and would be perfectly content, if they can continue to live in the style to which the boom has accustomed them, to be ruled, from above, by an oligarchy of assorted experts. That so many of the well-fed young television-watchers in the world's most powerful democracy should be so completely indifferent to the idea of self-government, so blankly uninterested in freedom of thought and the right to dissent, is distressing, but not too surprising.If the bread is supplied regularly and copiously three times a day, many of them will be perfectly content to live by bread alone

"in the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, 'make us your slaves, but feed us.' "

But some of us still believe that, without freedom, human beings cannot become fully human and that freedom is therefore supremely valuable. Perhaps the forces that now menace freedom are too strong to be resisted for very long. It is still our duty to do whatever we can to resist them.

"The society described in 1984 is a society controlled almost exclusively by punishment and the fear of punishment. In the imaginary world of my own fable, punishment is infrequent and generally mild. The nearly perfect control exercised by the government is achieved by systematic reinforcement of desirable behavior, by many kinds of nearly non-violent manipulation, both physical and psychological, and by genetic standardization. Babies in bottles and the centralized control of reproduction are not perhaps impossible; but it is quite clear that for a long time to come we shall remain a viviparous species breeding at random. For practical purposes genetic standardization may be ruled out. Societies will continue to be controlled post-natally -- by punishment, as in the past, and to an ever increasing extent by the more effective methods of reward and scientific manipulation."

If you can achieve mind manipulation you won´t need punishment, since people will do EXACTLY what they are supposed to do.This I do not think is impossible, I guess technology and its important branch psychology, can provide all means, but the question is:What is it that people are supposed to do or how are they supposed to behave and, more important, WHO says what?

I am not a fan of nature, I do not believe that ALL what nature does is good and is the best.We need to reproduce ourselves in order to go on for doing whatever we are supposed to do in this earth.We do not know why we are here or how we came here, we do not know who we are or why we are.We know that we live a certain amount of years, that we will die, that we have to leave a part of ourselves to go on with the job begun millions of years ago.To assure the continuation of a species which is endangered to survive, you have usually to "overdo".A tree spreads millions seeds, but just a few become a new tree.Humanity has reached a good point, in which most of the seeds survive, so the answer should be only one: plant less seeds.When you have a reduced piece of land you plant just what is more likely to grow.

I am not a Eugenist, but I understand.Still the big question: Does somebody have the right to decide?

Thursday, December 30, 2010

Hitler was a stupid, a naive, because he thought (as ALL before him) that for ruling the world was enough to be the strongest, to have the best weapons, the best scientists.There is a fable of Aesop, written thousands of years ago, but that explains it all, in few words: the Fable of the Sun and the Wind.If you are able to own the mind of the people, then you OWN the people.Because they do WHAT you want on their "free will".Many times I asked myself is there really a "free will"? Or what we call in that way, in reality is the product of what we are told, and told, and told.When a child is born it merely follows its instinct.It can even walk.Then the more its experience, the less its instinct.May be instinct is the "free will", what the body feels of doing because it is the "Best" for surviving.Our instinct tells us to fear certain things, because in our DNA there is the remote memory of our ancestor, the memory of the most important things to help us surviving.Killing the instinct, building a new brain in which the priorities are what "the family" wants, this is the right pattern to rule the world.As Aesop said, you cannot OBLIGE, but you can CONVINCE.When you have somebody doing what you want "for his own will" you will have him forever.Call it brainwashing, call it collective persuasion, call it whatever you want, it is the WORST, more ABOMINABLE, more EVIL way to rule.You can fight a dictator, you can fight for freedom, you NEVER fight something in which you are a part.Our body has wonderful resources; I would say that a healthy person can heal from most of illnesses.It cannot heal from cancer, or a virus attack, because it is willingly accepting them, they are A PART of the body.That is the best way to kill an "enemy" or to enslave somebody.

This is one of my favorite stories by Aesop, still valid after thousands of years:

The Wind and the Sun were disputing which was the stronger. Suddenly they saw a traveler coming down the road, and the Sun said: "I see a way to decide our dispute. Whichever of us can cause that traveler to take off his cloak shall be regarded as the stronger. You begin."

So the Sun retired behind a cloud, and the Wind began to blow as hard as it could upon the traveler.

But the harder he blew the more closely did the traveler wrap his cloak round him, till at last the Wind had to give up in despair.

Then the Sun came out and shone in all his glory upon the traveler, who soon found it too hot to walk with his cloak on.

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

“The technetronic era involves the gradual appearance of a more controlled society. Such a society would be dominated by an elite, unrestrained by traditional values. Soon it will be possible to assert almost continuous surveillance over every citizen and maintain up-to-date complete files containing even the most personal information about the citizen. These files will be subject to instantaneous retrieval by the authorities.”

"As the planet continues its long slide into the pit, what are YOU going to do to try to change the direction?"

A good start, and Mr. Kunstler is doing that since long, is talking about, explaining what happens, proposing solutions.But writing is not enough, to say the truth you need two persons, the one who talks AND the one who listens.The main problem of today is that there are too many talkers and too few listeners.They say that for going better you must reach the bottom.We already have, but instead of trying to go better it looks that people are digging furher, may be they think it is easier to reach the other side of the globe digging, or they think going on digging they will find the solution, or, which is more likely, they are TOLD that the solution is going further down.How can you dream to solve your problems going on the same direction it created them?Or may be it is right.Cristoforo Colombo went West to arrive East.He didn´t know that he would have found America and stop there.But he was right.Earth is a globe and going in one direction you can find yourself in the opposite.May be the same applies to life.Life is a circle, you go in one direction and you find yourself in the opposite.If you do not, as Colombo did, find death (America) in between.

Monday, December 27, 2010

Communism failed for the same reason Capitalism will fail.They both weren’t bad ideas, they were great ideas in the hands of the wrong people.Make a revolution, build the perfect society, with the perfect government, justice, law and order.It will slowly get into an oligarchy or a totalitarian state where the strong will get the power and with the power the money and the mass poorer and poorer till the point in which there will be a new revolution and after it a new perfect society and so on.It is not the type of government that has to be changed.It is the people.But that will never happen.

The unsold condos and the unsolved mortgages are in Florida, but most of the money for the subprime crisis came from European banks.That is why Europe’s banks still fight to finance themselves.Making matters worse now they have to compete against their governments which need to sell outrageously huge debts.In this war Germany’s banks, even though have big refinancing needs, can still borrow at very low rates because investors know that the state has the strength to back them.A different scenario is in countries like Spain or Great Britain where banks can just hope in the markets recovery.The feared insolvency of the state makes things much more difficult, and to catch investor’s higher interest rates could be necessary.This can only mean less investments and a lower income for the people.Lower income brings as a result lower spending which means economical crisis and a growth of unemployment.I guess this means bad news for Europe’s future.

China’s economy relies too much on investment and too little on consumers spending, while America and Europe rely too much on consumers spending and too little on investment.Rebalancing the two would mean higher salaries for the Chinese’s and lower spending for Americans and Europeans.Letting wages rise at the expense of the profits would mean the trade with China would be smaller in quantity, but the local American and European companies would see the advantage to produce again in their own countries.That would also mean inflation and not deflation.In spite of the lowering of prices, people in the West buy less because the available money is less (unemployment grew a lot since China came into the game).China needs consumers, the West needs workers.

Two days after Christmas, buried in snow, we still survive.The future? Who cares?This is the good side of realizing you are getting old.The future doesn´t scare you anymore, because it is just a prolonged present.You appreciate youth when you are old, and you appreciate old age when you are dying.Because there is always something worse.Christmas is one of those moments in which you remember the past.The smell of paper and ink, the place where when I was a child we used to buy the Christmas tree´s decorations, every year a few new colored pieces to wrap and put aside the first days of January.The long walks in the woods to pick up the moss for the "Presepio", the hours spent to paint the sky and the stars, the small lakes made with an empty metal box where the sheeps were drinking.The candles, the lights, the songs, the presents, everything was magic.Then you ask what has become of the child who was dreaming a happy and glamorous life, how that child can be the woman of today, and you realize the biggest tragedy of life: you can only go forward, no backward allowed.

Thursday, December 23, 2010

Once again it is Christmas.When I was a child I used to think to the Christmases of the future, now I like to wander in the ones of the past.They were much different, not because of their poverty compared to the abundance of today (even if people complain) but because the spirit was different.When you have hopes and dreams life is much more beautiful than when you have the money and the possibility to satisfy them (at least a part).I think I am a REAL European, and I think that if ALL the people living in Europe were real Europeans, Europe would be a different thing, because it would be ALIVE.I was born in Italy, I lived in England, France, and Switzerland and now I live in Germany and my husband is German.But I just think I lived in Europe and my husband is a European just like me.I know there are people who almost laugh and enjoy the troubles some countries are living, (the people of the country)I feel bad and grieve for them and I am also so angry, because when you live the life the OTHERS oblige you to live, well that is just not fair.I am not among the ones who believe that for example the Greeks are lazier than the Germans, or stupider or more naive.They were just more deceived, like the millions on this globe who suffer because a minority can drink Champagne or "enjoy" whatever they want.The only satisfaction I have is the knowledge that nobody really "enjoys" for long.Life is a hard thing, and sooner or later presents the bill.A bill everybody has to pay.Merry Christmas to all, also to the ones who won´t have a Merry Christmas at all.

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

I think I can call myself a "professional eBayer".I can proudly say I got a certain experience.I guess that few people can really understandand what it is.It is mostly a game in which the stronger wins, the stronger being, as usual, the one who can spare more money.But not always.Sometimes it is also a game that requires a certain amount of psychology and of course experience.The best bargain is, as usual, the one that nobody wants.That happens seldom, I always want what most people do, and I would even say that sometimes you do not want what nobody bids for and you think irresistable what many bid for.If everybody wants it, it must be good.I do not know who invented the one euro or one dollar or one pound beginning.I do not know if it would be worth to give him a Nobel prize, but certainly some kind of award yes.That one euro is so irresistable, it makes you bidding for things you would never dream to buy and sometimes paying for them much more than what you would if you could really understand what you are doing.Because you begin with one, but if the bidders are many you can finish much higher.Now it has got so tough, it is getting a war of seconds.I began bidding the last 2 minutes, then I got to one, then to 40 seconds, now I am around 6 seconds, crossing my fingers hoping to have enough speed on the line to reach the goal before it is finished.One thing must be said and that is that it was a great invention.It is true you buy a lot of useless thing, but it is also true you can afford what you normally wouldn´t.For my son it has become the way of wearing the last fashion, the most requested brand and spend nothing.He buys what he likes, wears it a few times, then resells it and buys something else.Not only he spends nothing and changes his wardrobe very often, sometimes he even makes a profit.After a while you get the feeling and perfectly know what you will be able to resell and what you could get for it.So you know what you have to pay for.It is very "green".So many things would just go wasted or sit in the wardrobe doing nothing, while they can be used by someone else.And it also produces jobs.Imagine the tons of goods traveling from one home to the other.Well, as they say, if it didn´t exist, someone should invent it...

The biggest threat to today’s economy and innovation is too much state and too less private.Remember when they complained about the Communist societies in which there was no place for individualism, no place for private initiative, too much burocracy?We are at the same point.Also the Internet under the word "regulation" is going toward its end, by the ubiquitous hands of the State."When the FCC asserts regulatory jurisdiction over an area of telecommunications, the dynamic of the industry changes. No longer are customer needs and desires at the forefront of firms' competitive strategies; rather firms take their competitive battles to the FCC, hoping for a favourable ruling that will translate into a marketplace advantage. Customer needs take second place; regulatory "rent-seeking" becomes the rule of the day, and a previously innovative and vibrant industry becomes a creature of government rule-making."

Sunday, December 19, 2010

Openess applied to software initially had a very specific meaning: open computer programs and languages are those that can run within a variety of environments and interoperability, which means they can exchange data with other software. They must also adhere to open standards, a term that is generally understood to refer to two related ideas: that the software should be free for use, and its source, or underlying, code should in some manner be defined by its community of developers and users. The operating system Linux is the best-known open software.The Windows operating system, by contrast, is closed, or “proprietary,”in the jargon of information technology: it is not portable and possesses limited interoperability.Although elements of Windows adhere to open standards, the program must be licensed, usually for a fee, and its source code has been compiled and hidden from users and developers outside Microsoft. Developers write to application programming interfaces, or APIs, which until last year were mostly closed, and which still Microsoft jealously guards.Ever since the emergence of the Web, whose multitudinous pages are themselves created with open standards, information technology has tended to become more and more open. Increasingly, software companies stress their openness.Often, this is mere marketing.Sun Microsystems’ Java platform, widely used to create software for devices as different as embedded systems and supercomputers, has been portable and interoperable since it was launched, but the heart of its source code was released only in 2007. Most technologists want their software to be open, because openness attracts innovation.

Since we spend most of our time working, while not trying to look good also when we do our job?Even if we wear a uniform?But besides looking good we should also feel comfortable and wear something that actually can help us to do what we are supposed to do.These are the reasons while medical stuff should always choose medical scrubs made by professionals who know how to make them.They must fit and make the people who wear them looking nice.It is true that a doctor and a nurse must be first efficient, but it doesn´t hurt, on the contrary, if they look also pleasant.And now, you can also buy scrubs online. That means no time wasting in shops and Department stores looking for them.You can comfortably sit in front of your computer and decide among a huge assortment of them.You can think, decide and chose the ones that fit yourself and your budget.So, from now on, if you are looking for medical scrub the answer is: look online.

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

This question is so outrageus and well explains the pit in which people are, a pit of ignorance and what our great poet Dante called "ignavia".In a real Democratic society the governement is made by people freely elected, they are there NOT to rule, but to represent the ones who elected them.Imagine this scenario: you are the owner of a company and you delegate somebody to represent you.One day you find out that this person has secrets and he keeps secret things you wouldn´t approve.What do you do?Do you ask yourself if it is actually LEGAL the fact that you know his secrets or you think that it is ILLEGAL the someone paid by you to act in your behalf and following your interests and your goals, does what you do not approve and keeps this secret, in order not to loose his job?

The question is:

IS IT LEGAL THAT THE GOVERNMENT HAS SECRETS?THAT IT KEEPS SECRETS IN ORDER NOT TO LET THE VOTERS KNOW THAT IT DOES NOT WHAT IT WAS VOTED FOR?

"For someone who was watching Iraq and Afghanistan with some care over the previous years, the leaks might have provided interesting details but they would not have provided any startling distinction between the reality that was known and what was revealed. If, on the other hand, you weren’t paying close attention, and WikiLeaks provided your first and only view of the battlefields in any detail, you might have been surprised."

That proves that the more you do to threaten and shut WikiLeaks the more interesting it gets also for people who do not care and do not understand about war or politics.What everybody understands and doesn´t like is the thought of being told one lie after the other, of being manipulated and brainwashed.

"First, how significant were the leaks? Second, how could they have happened? Third, was their release a crime? Fourth, what were their consequences? Finally, and most important, is the WikiLeaks premise that releasing government secrets is a healthy and appropriate act a tenable position?"

The question should be this: Has the Government have ANY right to have "government secrets"? Shouldn´t people know what is going on?Isn´t it the people´s right to KNOW what the Army is doing in Iraq?Shouldn´t they be entitled to have their own opinions, their own moral view?Shouldn´t they be entitled to say no to something they think immoral?And LAST, isn´t that the reason why THOSE were secrets?Because the Government knew that people wouldn´t have approved?

Isn´t it the right of the people to KNOW what the ones who were elected do?And shouldn´t the ONES who were elected DO WHAT the people who elected them want them to do?WikiLeaks is the voice of the unknown, worthless man on the road.It is the voice of right versus wrong, is the real Democracy, not the empty word they use to wash their mouth to justify ALL they do.

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

"Among many of WikiLeaks critics, there is a self-reinforcing hysteria surrounding WikiLeaks recent disclosures. These critics, in government, media and policy circles, are making irresponsible and factually inaccurate statements, with import far beyond the WikiLeaks case. Dangerous calls for the assassination of WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange or wild demands that Assange and WikiLeaks be designated terrorists must be condemned not only for being morally and legally outrageous, but because they will chill free speech for many years to come."

They won´t chill free speech, on the contrary, many who do not know or do not care, will know and will care.

"These investigations appear to be targeting WikiLeaks for publishing leaked information. Newspapers and other media outlets routinely publish leaked information, and this action should not criminalized through application of existing law, nor through new legislation."

Newspaper belong to the past and to the present, WikiLeak belongs to the future.It is the beginning, as in all revolution, the signs were already there long before, but they just needed a match, a beginning.How many Assange will we have in the near future?How many more leaking websites?People want truth and justice and a better world.

"Which is why I want to say this, as clearly as I can: it’s exactly because Assange and Wikileaks are relatively unimportant (compared to the gigantic scandal of the anti-democratic security state in which we now live) that the media has made him into a superstar, has tried to make the entire story about Wikileaks and a single eccentric and interesting character, rather than about the United States government’s actions as a system. The more we focus on him – and I’ve contributed to that, which is why I particularly want to write this post — the more we take attention away from the real story, the substance of the things Wikileaks has revealed....."

I fully disagree.I see the big picture.Which is the dawn of a new world, a world where people care to say what the others do not know.Today is "the United States government’s actions as a system."and tomorrow something else.It is the reborn "conscience", the wish of having again a future, better than this present, is being able to hope, which is all about life.I had a wonderful grandfather, he hoped and dreamed to be able to do great things in his life, he didn´t reach any of his goals, but he lived a wonderful life, waking up everyday with something to fulfill.That is why we ALL love Assange.Give us something to die for and you will make us more human.

where you will be asked three easy questions (of course easy if you know the answer).

If you answer the 3 questions correctly, you will be able to participate in a random draw to win a prize in the form of a gift card.

You will asked to spin a wheel to see if you won and what (the “Instant Prize”).

If you didn´t give the right answers do not worry, you can still win.

All participants who have entered the Contest during the previous week can sign up for participation in a weekly draw to win a

prize in the form of a weekend stay for 2 persons...

And all this with no obligation (you do not have to purchase anything).

But...you must be European, (sorry, no Swedish) and not an employee of Rezidor, entities in the Rezidor Hotel Group or Zupa,or an immediate family member, or a member of the household of such employees.

You must also be 18 or more.

The contest lasts from 1 December 2010 until 23.59 on 2 January 2011.

Needless to say that I just tried (won nothing) but still hoping to win that promised " weekend stay for 2 persons".

I would like to go to Hamburg.

I have this dream since I saw pictures of the city on a Meridian magazine.

That is the place where I would like to be, I thought.

But since then I haven´t had the chance, also because it is NOT a cheap place and I love (when I travel) to enjoy luxury.

Hamburghas a wide selection of galleries to explore and the largest art museum in Germany.

On Sunday morning I would like to be in the Fischmarkt at the Elbe river.

I know a funny joke about “Aale Dieter”( a so called "Marktschreier") : "Hering, Hering - so fett wie der Göring" (herring, herring as fat as Göring" - he used to shout until he was warned by some officials. The next day it was : "Hering, Hering so fett wie gestern" (Herring, herring as fat as yesterday).

Last dream would be seeing the famous Blankenese.

It is where you can see the most exclusive Villas of Hamburg. Just to please the eyes.

Hamburg is absolutely the best place to be for coffee lovers, as I am.

Well, this and much more is something you can dream until 2 January 2011.

And if I do not win? May be it is better not to spoil your dreams making them reality... next year or sooner there will be another competition...

Something very interesting happened and I didn't want to tell you as a public post. My husband works for a Federal contractor for the Dept of Education. A few days ago they received a memo stating that, unless they had the security clearance to do so, if it was found out that he or any of his fellow employees were found to have accessed Wikileaks they would be immediately terminated from their job. I thought you might find this little piece of info interesting. You may use it at any point you like but PLEASE keep my name anonymous.

If I had to put a bet, I would bid against the State.They should know what is universally known, that the more you forbid something, the more interesting that something gets...

Saturday, December 11, 2010

The State Department claims that the "leaks" contain a mixture of falsehoods and truths in unknown proportion.

It is the last strategy, after trying to close mouth and Internet, talking about "truth mixed with disinformation", of course not saying what is what, to confuse the reader.It would work if it wasn´t that WikiLeak says things "dejavu" and "dejaheard" or "dejaknown", but of which the reader didn´t have the proof.Nothing is more believable of what you already know.People of the world, it is time to realize that the fairy tale is finished, it is time to face the truth, it is time to take our life in OUR hands.

When you are young you are more liable to believe, in truth, in right, in perfect.When you get older you realize that nothing is completely right or wrong, because everything is humanized and human nature is NOT completely right or wrong, or better, it isn´t completely neutral, it cannot be.

Human nature drives people to look for their best, which very seldom (almost never) is everybody´s best.Some people exasperate this goal to the extreme.And those are the ones that generally rule, the ones who say one thing and do another.Trusting, believing, is in our nature, but there is nothing you can fully trust or believe."So far, there's not a single revelation that would even mildly surprise any normally diligent reader of the morning papers. Where's the bombshell? I am not suggesting that there is not one -- or even several."Do we really think that there is still something that can surprise us? That we didn´t know already?

"Mobster Al Capone, you’ll recall, was nailed for tax evasion, not murder. As the Pentagon and Justice Department have learned, it may be difficult to try Assange in the U.S. under the creaky Espionage Act of 1917, unsuited to our Age of Wiki. So sex allegations will have to do. "Margaret Carlson

There is a huge difference between the two.AlCapone was a REAL criminal, he was on the wrong side of the law, Assange is on the right side of the law, with documented proof that his enemies are on the wrong side of the law.And they are also on the wrong side of the simple, elementary intelligence.When you try to defeat an enemy in an unlawful way, not only you won´t win, you will make a hero.If there are two men, one with a gun and one with a pen, the one with the gun is a dead man, because the pen gives you immortality.If you are too stupid to understand this simple fact, you are also too stupid to be on the wrong side of the law.Being a succesful criminal sometimes proves to be even harder than to be a honest man.

What can we do to help Google, Bing, and other search engines avoid and if necessary mitigate the possibilities of future government attempts to mutate them from honest indexers of Internet data into government information control puppets?

The first thing you can do is to stop using the Quisling companies that folded at the first sign of government pressure -- and tell them so, and tell your own audience so.

The strongest motivation you can give a company like Google or Bing is for its customers to be solidly behind it in principled action, and opposed to any unprincipled action.

Since in the twisted ad-based economics of the Intertubes, most of us aren't Google's or Bing's customers, that ties our hands somewhat.

But we *are* customers of Amazon, PayPal, Visa, and MasterCard. Those are the companies that currently deserve our scorn and don't deserve our money. If they got a flood of complaints -- and most important, a visibly lowered business during this wonderful holiday season -- then some of them might recant.

Monday, December 06, 2010

This is the clear example of how a Monopolist takes advantage of its position and legally steals money from its customers.This is an example:

"My Paypal account is also frozen for no apparent reason and they will not give a reason. Well they call it restricted but in reality it means frozen and they get to do what they like with my and your money.

From what information I can gather from the Internet this is a very common occurrence horror stories abound in fact there are websites dedicated to exposing Paypal and its many scams and underhand business practices. One employee (now ex-employee)of Paypal actually testified in court restricting accounts was looked upon as an additional source of revenue.

No one knows for certain how many of Paypals 26,000,000 accounts are frozen at any given time but it is estimated to be over 1,000,000.

There are hundreds of thousands of court cases filed against Paypal most of which seem to get settled just before going to court.

Paypal tries every trick in the book to wriggle out of getting regulated by any government financial regulators or from coming under any sort of regulations at all except their own terms and conditions where they are the sole arbitrator judge and jury. They were beginning to be regulated in the UK so in order to circumvent that they registered in Luxembourg where the FSA

The question is why what are they so afraid of, have they been cooking the books are they insolvent and can only keep going by freezing customers accounts withholding their funds and using them in order to keep trading.

One thing is becoming very clear it is about time Paypal was regulated its business practices investigated and the practice of freezing customers accounts withholding their funds and not even allowing them to return the money from where it came abolished. It is not even possible to close your account when it is restricted."

I tried to close mine, bur it was impossible.And what about the ppromised "You are insured if you pay with paypal"The insurance consists, when it works, to move the money from one account to the other, without any investigation, and when it doesn´t work, just ignore any complaints.

there are millions of entrpreneurs, why nobody builds something working and honest?Has our world so deteriorated that there is NOBODY you can trust anymore?

"Robots will be doing all our work, Computers will be doing all our thinking and Artificial Minds will be doing all our living . This is an automatic process, you can't stop, so just accept it and deal with it."

This IS the point.What is technology worth if it doesn’t make human life better?If it is not useful to produce more food to feed ALL?If just a few get enormous advantages out of it and the mass suffers even more?

Technology should be used, should be at humans service to help us to live better, to think more and to progress.When man discovered the fire, the wheel, the electricity and all other great inventions, life changed and changed in better for ALL.Why doesn’t the computer, the modern science, the latest inventions, help us to progress?Because they are used by a restricted number of individuals, for making them richer, while making the others poorer and poorer.Technology is no evil, but men are.

Thursday, December 02, 2010

That is what is left when all the rest is gone.And all the rest is Working, Producing, Saving, Investing.In other words making something out of your time, which is generally energy consuming.And this is particularly awesome in an age of "Energy Peak".We are at the point of no return.Gone is the age of "human energy" usage, gone is the age of "Cheap Oil energy" usage, and "Alternative Energy" hasn't arrive yet.Better: "Cheap Alternative Energy".

So, in times where all the Stereotypes have fallen, when what they taught us is not valid anymore, when the world is falling and our lifestyle follows it, what do we have left, or better, what do our governments have left?When everything is taxed, and highly taxed, when whatever you do you have to pay them, when you don't do anything because you have no job and consequently you do not pay them, where do they get the money?They look into the Future, but no solution there, they look into the past, but you cannot go backward.The solution: be creative, invent "alternative ways of grabbing money".Too bad it is the same old story, the one who has to pay and the one who has to get.

I had to sort the paper, the plastic, the plasticated paper, the papered plastic, the aluminum, the glass, the organic, the semiorganic, the semiinorganic and so on.

I have bags for this and bags for that.

I have the schedule for the paper collection, the plastic collection and so on...

I love our Planet and I am more than willing to save it...but sometimes I miss those times when you put ALL in one big bag, the big bag in a big can and you just forgot all...

Since I am NOT somebody who passively does what she is requested to do, I began thinking.

Where does ALL my garbage finish?

There are people who make a good profit out of it, just burning and producing energy.

Why shouldn´t we, the garbage owners, do the same?

This is one of those ideas that not only solve a problem, but make a good profit out of it.

My idea: since in a big scale they use our garbage to make energy, why not building a machine that burns it and transforms it in energy?

Nothing really new, the sterling engine exists since long, why not using it in every household to produce the expensive energy we need and to get rid of our waste?

The investment would easily be recuperated in a little time.

What bigger ROI than the cost increasing, demand increasing energy, and the solution for the ever increasing garbage hassle?

An engine, which swallows all kind of our garbage, but deals with the different material in a different way (organic material creates biogas, the leftover of burned other material is reburned as long as it is almost CO2 neutral).

A stirling type engine is fed by the gas produced while burning our garbage, the engine produces energy for warming my house, for feeding all my electric appliances and so on...

I think that it is a great idea, worth of further development, so I posted it on Open Planet Ideas website.

If you are somebody who has ideas, the fertile type, the ones that produce other good ideas and all together help to save the Planet (and may be also our budget), you can Join the challenge.

Creativity is something you feed with communication. Fertile ideas make new ideas and new ideas make progress.I, myself, feel a newborn brain after surfing the Net for a while, after reading stimulating and interesting articles.I learn much more reading what the others think than from any book.Technology is one thing and the application and use of a new technology something else.Any invention is for nothing if you do not know how to use it.And how to use it depends from creativity.Creativity is the exercise of the brain.It is moving neurons and synapses.It is where progress and innovations come from.It is riel borating other people's ideas, finding the good and the bad.Discharging the bad and developing the good.Without creativity, man wouldn't have evolved.Creativity is the meaning of our lives.But creativity wouldn't exist without communication.Ideas make new ideas and from new ideas, our world grows.

Wednesday, December 01, 2010

For me blogging is mostly a pleasure, I like to write when I have something to say.

And since I could also make some profit out of it, it became even more interesting.

It is mostly the challenge, trying to write a post, an interesting one, if possible, about a subject they assign you.

It is, in a few words, the very essence of creativity.

And what would the campaign I would like to write about? What would allow me to express myself at its best?

It should probably be something I know quite well, something I am interested in, of course something I like.

I used to be and I still am, interested in philosophy and life, mostly in people, so the choice could be quite big.

May be something related to everyday life, to education or health, or technology.

I think I am quite open and quite versatile.

One of the companies I like most to work for is ebuzzing, which belongs to the Wikio Group, and allows you to display videos and publish articles about brands that you like, when you want, whilst earning.

You are free to say what you want, the way you like it and decide to accept a campaign or deny it.

That is you are free to decide if, when and what.

What about the ethics of writing about a brand on your blog through ebuzzing?

I had several discussions, and I can say I feel fine about it.

Because I would never write a positive comment or sponsor something I do not believe in, just because they pay me for.

This is also one point on < a href="http://www.ebuzzing.com"> ebuzzing.com </A>side.

They always propose interesting campaigns, the way to add very often cool, relevant and exclusive content to your blog.

What brand would I like to write about?

If I could choose I would like to write about some new technology, some new application, some really "killer application".

Something concerning the Internet and its future, something "new".

I do not care about the "brand", I care about the "content".

If you like marketing, and that is what a sponsored post is all about, or aims to be, then it is not important "who" but "what".

There is nothing more stimulating than having to do the impossible( or almost)...that brings usually out the best of you.